


The Dark and the Light

by Zoya1416



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Gen, Near Drowning, Small Walid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-05 21:17:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14627217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya1416/pseuds/Zoya1416
Summary: First meeting between two friends.





	The Dark and the Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [akathecentimetre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/akathecentimetre/gifts).



> akathecentimetre has been asking for more Walingale. This isn't exactly that. Flash fiction. Also known as what I did instead of cleaning my house.

Nightingale was drowning. He could barely remember why he'd come to this deep loch, except that it had been reported as haunted. Since there were no Scottish wizards anymore, he'd had to leave London and come to sunless Scotland in the winter. Rain poured. 

The loch wasn't just haunted, it was inhabited by a savage Viking revenant who roamed the shores looking for people to eat. The attacks were random, but they'd increased, and he'd stalked it. He'd destroyed the revenant and saved the latest child victims. But not without risk, without price. He'd been dragged under by his hair without even a desperate gulp of air, and though he'd tried an oxygen-production spell he'd seen only once, the last bubble was growing smaller. It was dark under the water, so dark.  
Suddenly there was a 'twack' beside his head and he gulped water even as his fading senses realized it was not another attack, it was a paddle. Someone was trying to help. He reached out a single flailing hand and touched the wood, then felt a small hand reach for his. A larger arm pulled him in. He was brought onto land, he had the water pressed from his lungs, and finally breathed in the cold air.

A child's soft Highland voice said, 'Will he be rait? I found him, he killed it, he killed it.'

'Nae time to lose, son, keep him warm.'

When he was finally warm, wrapped in blankets before a fire, a bright blue pair of young eyes stared at him.

'Y'really are a wizard then. Y'fought t'old bastard of the loch with fire from your hand.'

'Language, Angus! Leave him be.'

He smiled crookedly. 'Yes, I am a wizard, and I think I'm alive thanks to you.'

He never forgot the battle, but it was on a warm day almost 20 years later when he heard that voice again.

'Mr. Nightingale? Sir, is that yersel?'

Turning, he saw the bright blue eyes a second time, now in a ginger-headed young man's body.

"Angus?'

A wide grin answered him. 'Well, it's Abdul now, but come, let me buy you a coffee.'


End file.
